DO NOT WAIT UNTIL SPRING!

The REAL reason to keep your home on the market during the winter

Maybe in waaaaaay northern areas of our country the real estate market crashes during winter, but not here. One of the major attractions to our region is our four-season climate. No matter which season you love, we have it here. That also means we have visitors year-round. Winter brings beautiful decorations of all kinds, twinkling lights all over the city, and the temperatures that make us feel in a holiday mood. Downtown is packed; Biltmore Village is packed; Pack Place is, well, packed! People from all over are here falling in love with the area and wanting to see what homes they can purchase. I know, because that’s what my family did!

So your home’s been on the market and you decide to take it off because no one searches for homes during the winter, it’s a down time. It is during winter that we have what is probably the only period during the year there’s any kind of a “down” time: maybe from the second week of January until the second week of February…the heat of romance on Valentine’s day starts the crowds back up, I suppose. Based on data, though, this down time doesn’t really apply to real estate.

The graph shows the trend moved upward in the winter of 2016 to 2017.*

There is a real risk in leaving the market until Spring. Certainly, when your home returns to the market, the agents know its history and it becomes stale. More importantly, buyers feel you’re not motivated; if you took the home off the market for a couple of months, then obviously you’re not serious about selling. So why should a buyer bother with an unmotivated seller. Unless…the seller has made a serious price reduction. Ah, that shows some motivation. But maybe you wouldn’t have had to lower the price if you stayed on the market through the winter. First, there are fewer homes on the market which makes demand for yours much higher. Secondly, there really isn’t a significant price drop during the winter. The list-to-sell ratio in November 2016 was 96.2%. At the height of the market this year, May to June, the list-to-sell was 96.6%…a difference of .004% doesn’t really reflect a “down” market.

So, be a maverick! Keep your home on the market during the Winter. Better yet, list your home with us today and stand out in the crowd. We’ll be happy to help you with that; just give us a call!

*All data is based on Buncombe County, residential sales, all price ranges, no special circumstances such as bank-owned or distressed.